Monday, May 25, 2015

Blank canvas

On
Sunday a group of us from BPYC spent the afternoon in an art class.
Maria, the instructor, is actually a grade school art teacher, but
turned out to be a perfect fit for us. She brought along everything we
would need to complete three
different projects: paints, canvases, brushes, palette knives, and most
importantly, her encouragement. After a short demo and general advice,
she wandered among our tables to lend an eye or hand when invited.

Seventeen
participants, most of us from the book club, sat four or five to a
table. I found the blank canvases a bit intimidating at first, but took a
leap of faith and dipped my sponge into the paint. A circle of white,
expanding to iridescent
blue and deepening to midnight, became the background for five birches
bathed in moonlight. The birches were created using masking tape to
create negative space around long, straight trunks. A credit card turned
out to be the perfect tool to blend the hues
with gentle curves. We waited for the paint to dry, and then removed it
for the big reveal – hoping none had leaked under the adhesive.

It
worked! I was pleased with my artistic effort, and It was great fun to
wander around and look at others’ creations. There was so much variety
in the execution of the simple theme. I could almost see the little kids
coming out in people’s
smiles.

During
the afternoon we also played with making a few more canvases. Flowers
in a field, and hydrangeas in a vase. I didn’t get around to the
hydrangeas, but it was a fun approach that involved blowing bubbles with a straw. The flowers in the field were another technique, using palette knives to
give shape to the paint.

Maria’s projects were well chosen. Not
only were they simple, they incorporated basic techniques for maximum
effect. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we hope to have Maria
return again in the fall or winter to lead us through another
session.

It
made me happy to see how an idea I’d had a few months earlier had taken
shape. Last New Year I had made a quiet resolution to take a few art
classes. I thought it would be fun to get a group together, and reached
out to my BPYC book
club to see if there were any takers. There was lots of interest, so I
then reached out to a teacher to try to organize an afternoon. The person I found was a bit pricey. That’s when Laura B.
stepped up. She found someone willing and able, who
could do it for a great rate. Who knows, the session may have inspired more than a couple of members to pick up brushes again. We may need to have an exhibition some time in the future.

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